Among the county’s successful and needed programs is its dredge operation. For the past 15 years, towns utilizing the service have paid a fraction of the cost of contracting with private firms.

It’s been in such demand that a second dredge to bolster operations has been discussed in the past, but the numbers never quite work. The first dredge was acquired with a $1 million capital grant from the Commonwealth. That initial subsidy has allowed the county to perform dredge work at about 70 percent below market rates.

In order for a second dredge to operate at the same low cost, its acquisition would need to be similarly subsidized, and that hasn’t been in the cards. During budget discussions before the county commissioners last week, however, an idea on how to do that was suggested.

Among the approaches advocated through the Massachusetts Estuaries Program, the Cape Cod Commission and Water Protection Collaborative is to improve degraded estuarine systems and improve their capacity to handle a higher percentage of the nitrogen that’s killing many of them. Dredging such systems to improve water flow is among the ways of doing this.

It’s possible that to assist this effort, some grant funding could be found for a second dredge that could perform some of this work, or so it’s thought.

That’s a creative thought worth pursuing and adding to what’s hoped to be a growing arsenal of natural attenuation plans to remove excess nitrogen without the need for really expensive infrastructure such as sewers and package treatment plants.

It may even be worth a shared investment by the towns to help buy a second county dredge if it can help avoid future wastewater costs.

DS II

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